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Grilled by Senate, Boeing CEO admits to “serious missteps” on safety

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Grilled by Senate, Boeing CEO admits to “serious missteps” on safety

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg testifies before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Wednesday about current and planned changes the company is making, including safety.

Jose Luis Magana/AP


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Jose Luis Magana/AP

Under sharp questioning from U.S. Senators Wednesday, the CEO of Boeing acknowledged a lax safety culture existed at the aircraft manufacturer but denied workers on Boeing’s factory floors were being pressured to speed up lagging production.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who was appointed to his post just last August, appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill. The hearing, titled “Safety First: Restoring Boeing’s Status as a Great American Manufacturer,”” focused on the steps the company has taken to address production deficiencies and safety issues that led to the door plug blow out incident on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX-9 jet in January last year.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators found that four critical bolts needed to secure the door plug in place were not reinstalled at the Boeing factory in Renton, Wash., leading the door plug to blow out of the fuselage of the plane in mid-air, causing a rapid depressurization in the cabin of the passenger jet. None of the 177 passengers and crew members on board were seriously hurt.

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But Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who chairs the Commerce Committee, says “the incident produced fresh doubt about Boeing’s ability to safely build planes.”

“Efforts to cut corners in production or to move to the next production phase before necessary parts arrived have led to unacceptable failures,” Cruz said at the start of the committee hearing. He then went on to criticize Boeing’s “insufficient oversight” of its suppliers and of its own manufacturing process, which Cruz says led to “an unsustainable lack of safety culture at Boeing.”

In response, Ortberg acknowledged the company “has made serious missteps in recent years, and it is unacceptable.” But he insists the aerospace giant has “made sweeping changes to the people, processes, and overall structure of our company” to improve safety.

In regards to the specific failures that led to the door plug blowing out in flight, Ortberg took responsibility and vowed to fix the problems on the factory floor.

“It’s unacceptable that an aircraft left our factory without that door plug properly installed,” Ortberg told the Senate panel, adding, “and let me just make that perfectly clear, that can never, never happen again.”

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Since the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration has capped Boeing’s production of 737 MAX jetliners, its best selling plane in company history, at 38 planes per month. But Ortberg acknowledged in Wednesday’s hearing that the airplane manufacturer isn’t even producing planes at that rate yet, and is about two years behind in delivering ordered 737 MAX airplanes to its airline customers.

Under questioning, Ortberg acknowledged that he’d like to eventually increase the rate of production to 38 by the end of the year, but he insisted the company is not in a rush to do so, nor is he pressuring factory employees to speed up their work.

“Look, I want to be clear, I’ve not provided financial guidance to Wall Street for the performance of the company, I’ve not provided guidance on how many aircraft we’re going to deliver, I’ve gone and gotten financial coverage so that we can allow our production system to heal,” Ortberg said. “I’m not pressuring the team to go fast. I’m pressuring the team to do it right.”

Boeing’s safety protocols and lax safety culture were already under intense scrutiny following the crashes of two 737 Max passenger jets just five months apart in 2018 and 2019 that killed a total of 346 people.

Several family members of those killed in the crashes attended the hearing. They held up photos of their brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and children who died.

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Many say they want Boeing and the company’s top officials, especially those involved in the design and certification process of the 737 Max, held criminally accountable for the aircraft’s design and production flaws and for deceiving safety regulators.

Ortberg told senators Wednesday that the company is in talks with the Justice Department in hopes of reaching a revised plea agreement to resolve a criminal fraud charge. Boeing is accused of misleading the FAA about a flawed flight control system that investigators blame in part for causing the MAX crashes.

“I want this resolved as fast as anybody,” Ortberg told the committee. “Hopefully, we’ll have a new agreement here soon.”

Last July, the company agreed to plead guilty to one count of criminal fraud conspiracy and to pay a $243 million fine and an additional $455 million on compliance and safety programs. But in December, the Texas federal judge overseeing the base rejected the deal, and last week, he set a June 23 trial date for the company.

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Man Charged With Posting Bomb Instructions Used in New Orleans Attack

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Man Charged With Posting Bomb Instructions Used in New Orleans Attack

Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a former Army serviceman they accused of distributing instructions on how to build explosives that were used by a man who conducted a deadly attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day last year.

The former serviceman, Jordan A. Derrick, a 40-year-old from Missouri, was charged with one count of engaging in the business of manufacturing explosive materials without a license; one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device; and one count of distributing information relating to manufacturing explosives, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday. The three charges together carry a maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison.

Starting in September 2023, the authorities said, Mr. Derrick was using various social media sites to share videos of himself making explosive materials, including detonators. His videos provided step-by-step instructions, and he often engaged with viewers in comments, sometimes answering their questions about the chemistry behind the explosives.

The authorities said that Mr. Derrick’s videos were downloaded by Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, who was accused of ramming a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025, in a terrorist attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens. Mr. Jabbar was killed in a shootout with the police. Before the attack, Mr. Jabbar had placed two explosives on Bourbon Street, the authorities said, but they did not detonate.

The authorities later recovered two laptops and a USB drive in a house that Mr. Jabbar had rented. The USB drive contained several videos created by Mr. Derrick that provided instructions on making explosives. The authorities said the explosives they recovered were consistent with the ones Mr. Derrick had posted about.

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Mr. Derrick’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Derrick was a combat engineer in the Army, where he provided personnel and vehicle support, the authorities said. He also helped supervise safety personnel during demolitions and various operations. He was honorably discharged in February 2013.

The authorities did not say whether Mr. Derrick had any communication with Mr. Jabbar, or whether the men had known each other. In some of Mr. Derrick’s videos and comments, he indicated that he was aware that his videos could be misused.

“There are a plethora of uh, moral, you know, entanglements with topics, any topic of teaching explosives, right?” he asked in one video, according to the affidavit. “Of course, the wrong people could get it.”

The authorities also said that an explosion occurred at a private residence in Odessa, Mo., on May 4, and the occupant of the residence told investigators that he had manufactured explosives after watching online tutorials from Mr. Derrick.

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Mr. Derrick’s YouTube account had more than 15,000 subscribers and 20 published videos, the affidavit said. He had also posted content on other platforms, including Odysee and Patreon. Some videos were accessible to the public for free, while others required a paid subscription to view.

“My responsibility to my countrymen is to make sure that I serve the function of the Second Amendment to strengthen it,” Mr. Derrick said in one of his videos, according to the affidavit. “This is how I serve my country for real.”

Outside of the income he received through content creation, Mr. Derrick did not have any known employment. He did receive a monthly disability check from Veterans Affairs, the affidavit stated.

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The Girls: “This isn’t ringing alarms to y’all?” : Embedded

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The Girls: “This isn’t ringing alarms to y’all?” : Embedded
Allegations pile up, but Child Protective Services declines to investigate and the school district continues to promote Ronnie Stoner. We include an update at the end of the episode. “The Girls” is a 4-part series from the Louisville Public Media’s investigative podcast, Dig.
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Chud the Builder, Known for Racist Confrontations, Charged With Attempted Murder

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Chud the Builder, Known for Racist Confrontations, Charged With Attempted Murder

A streamer known for hurling racist slurs in public settings under the nickname “Chud the Builder” was charged with attempted murder after a shooting outside a Tennessee courthouse on Wednesday, the authorities said.

The streamer, Dalton Eatherly, 28, was involved in a confrontation with an unidentified man that escalated to gunfire outside the Montgomery County Court in Clarksville, about 50 miles northwest of Nashville, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Both men sustained gunshot wounds and were in stable condition, the office said.

In addition to attempted murder, Mr. Eatherly was charged with employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, the sheriff’s office said.

Mr. Eatherly, who is white, has accumulated an online audience by livestreaming confrontations in which he uses racist language toward Black people in public.

Law enforcement did not provide any details about the second man involved in Wednesday’s shooting. Mr. Eatherly posted an audio recording online of paramedics treating his wounds in which he claims he shot the man in self-defense.

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A video posted by the website Clarksville Now shows Mr. Eatherly on a stretcher with a microphone attached to his lapel.

Mr. Eatherly is being held at the Montgomery County Jail, pending arraignment, the sheriff’s office said.

According to court records, Mr. Eatherly was scheduled to appear for a court hearing on Wednesday morning in an unrelated case brought by Midland Credit Management, a collections agency.

A lawyer listed in court records from a separate harassment case in which Mr. Eatherly was a defendant in November did not respond to a request for comment.

On Sunday, three days before the shooting in Clarksville, Mr. Eatherly was arrested in Nashville. According to a police affidavit, Mr. Eatherly live streamed his meal at a restaurant, Bob’s Steak and Chop House, on Saturday even though the restaurant had asked him ahead of time not to do so.

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When he was confronted, Mr. Eatherly “became disruptive and started making racial statements, yelling, screaming and otherwise creating a scene,” according to the affidavit.

He then refused to pay for his $370 meal. Mr. Eatherly was charged with theft of services, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He was released on $5,000 bond.

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